Roswell: The Area 51 Connection

In early July 1947, something very unusual plunged to earth on the Foster Ranch, located in the wilds of Lincoln County, New Mexico, not far from the now-infamous town of Roswell. The event has been the subject of dozens of books, official studies undertaken by both the General Accounting Office and the U.S. Air Force, a plethora of television documentaries, a Hollywood movie, and considerable media scrutiny.

The admittedly-odd saga has left in its wake a near-mountain of theories to explain the event, including a weather balloon, a Project Mogul balloon secretly utilized to monitor for Soviet atomic-bomb tests, an extraterrestrial spacecraft, some dark and dubious high-altitude-exposure experiment using Japanese prisoners-of-war, a near-catastrophic atomic-bomb-based mishap, the crash of a V-2 rocket with shaved monkeys on-board, and an accident involving an early “Flying-Wing”-style aircraft, secretly built by transplanted German scientists who had relocated to the United States following the end of World War Two.

And, as I’m sure many of you will be aware, last year yet another theory for the Roswell affair surfaced. The latest story appeared in Annie Jacobsen’s Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base. The book included details of a sensational story suggesting that the Roswell craft and bodies were, in reality, the diabolical creations of a near-Faustian pact between the notorious Nazi (and “Angel of Death),” Dr. Josef Mengele and Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin.

The purpose of this early Cold War plan, so the book told it, was to plunge the United States into a kind of War of the Worlds-style panic (echoing the Orson Welles affair of 1938) by trying to convince the U.S. Government that aliens were invading. And how would the plan work? By placing grossly mutated children (courtesy of the crazed Mengele) inside a futuristic-looking aircraft designed by the brilliant aviation experts, the Horten brothers, and then try and convince the U.S. of the alien origins of both.

Unfortunately for Stalin, the plot failed when a storm brought down the craft and its “crew” in the wilds of New Mexico, an event that did not lead to widespread panic, but that instead was hastily covered-up by U.S. military authorities.

Is the story true? Was Jacobsen duped? Is it a blend of fact and fiction specifically weaved by government insiders to even further confuse the true nature of what did, or did not, happen outside of Roswell back in the summer of 1947? The questions are many, but definitive answers are less so. But, there’s something else I want to talk about; something that is highly relevant to this particular saga.

The angle of insiders with links to Area 51 being told that Roswell was a Soviet hoax (involving genetically-altered human beings) is an intriguing one. Now, just so there can be no misunderstanding, I don’t mean that because it’s intriguing I believe it’s the answer to the puzzle. I certainly don’t think, at all, that this is the answer to Roswell. However, here’s the important thing: the scenario of Area 51-linked people being told such a story does not begin and end with Jacobsen’s informant.

In late 2010, my book, The NASA Conspiracies was published and included a whole chapter that told the tale of a man who had worked at Area 51 in the early 1970s, and who had heard a very similar story to that told to Jacobsen and which appeared in her 2011 book. It’s a strange and convoluted saga involving a man named John who was exposed to a series of weird and controversial files that told astonishing tales of alien visitation and UFO crashes in the early, formative years of the Flying Saucer era. But, were those files real? That’s the crux of John’s revelations, as you will now see.

As I note in my book, The NASA Conspiracies: “John stressed that although the documentation at issue certainly looked genuine, he was never able to entirely dismiss from his mind the possibility that his exposure to the files could have been a part of some large, and very curious and convoluted, mind game on the part of NASA and the intelligence services, such as the CIA, Air Force Intelligence, and the National Security Agency.”

I continue in the book as follows: “Since his work at Area 51 and his access to the files surfaced as a direct result of his FBI contacts, John speculated that his superiors may have exposed him to totally bogus materials at Area 51, and then watched his every move to see if he spoke out of turn, and to those without security clearances. The fact that John never did speak out of turn in that twelve month period, and was thereafter considered utterly trustworthy, led him to be rewarded with a near decade long career in the private security sector. It was a career that saw him move, practically effortlessly, within highly influential circles in the world of U.S. Intelligence that were totally unconnected to UFOs.”

To me, at least, this is all very refreshing. Whistle-blowers are generally extremely keen to have their story believed; but John noted to me from the absolute outset (and as the above extract clearly demonstrates) that the nature of the data to which he was exposed should be addressed very carefully, and not accepted uncritically at all. Maybe, as John noted, the documentation was entirely bogus, prepared by disinformation specialists to test his reaction and response.

But, there’s more. John related an aspect of the story to me, that was published in my NASA book, and which dealt with one specific set of papers that, today, we can see is highly relevant to the account provided to Jacobsen. I described it in the pages of my 2010 book like this:

“…John did assert, however, that there was a brief collection of documents dating from July 1947 speculating that this might have all been the result of a very ingenious hoax on the part of the Soviets – until, that is, it very quickly became acutely apparent to one and all that not even the Soviet Union would have had the required expertise to successfully pull off such a fantastic ruse, much less biologically alter, or mutate, a number of human beings into something very different.”

To me, this is important, as we have old files seen and read by John (that ultimately found their way to Area 51 – they did not originate there) discussing the two central points of the story told to Jacobsen: (A) the idea that Roswell was a Soviet ruse; and (B) the theory that the bodies found at the crash-site might have been biologically altered or mutated by the Russians.

The story told by John, and published by me in late-2010, is astonishingly close to the one provided to Jacobsen and that appeared in her 2011 book. The big difference, of course, is that Jacobsen’s Area 51 source believed the Russian theory, while the originators of the files read by John at Area 51 – and John himself, too – clearly did not accept it as having any validity at all.

But, that such files did apparently exist at Area 51, and did refer to both the Russian hoax angle and the issue of genetically altering human beings, does make me think that this Russian-themed story/theory was indeed in circulation amongst Area 51 personnel at some point decades ago.

And maybe some of those people who were exposed to the files, to the rumors, and (as John speculated as a possibility) to some weird loyalty-testing mind-game, came to accept the Russian story as being utterly genuine (such as Jacobsen’s source), when in reality the truth, as John noted, may have been very different.

DNA wasn’t discovered until 1953, much less it’s manipulation thereof. If somehow the Soviets did manage to manipulate DNA before anyone else in the world then they could have put it to much better use then a convoluted conspiracy that in the end didn’t work and which never seems to be used in other ways again (they could have used it for weapons research or making genetically modified crops etc) all which would have aided in the fight against the Americans.

Also about the intelligence agencies as far as I am aware, they don’t like to work together so the idea that the CIA (which deals in HumInt), NSA (which deals in SigInt) and the Air Force Intelligence running ops side by side and in collaboration doesn’t seem feasible and of course in the end ‘John’ did spill the beans so to speak, how come he hasn’t been arrested?

In all likelihood it would seem that whatever crashed in New Mexico in 1947, whether it be a mundane weather balloon or an extraordinary alien encounter – it has spawned a whole culture behind it which nobody wants to part with.

Nick_redfern

Glorfindel:

Why wasn’t John arrested? Simple: he did not reveal any classified data. By his own admission, he felt the “files” he was exposed to were not genuine, but contained spurious data to test his loyalty when he was being groomed for classified work. That no action was taken, suggests his view that they contained no real, secret data, was correct.

Also by his admission, he has not spoken about his post-exposure work. I can also tell you that he took a great deal of legal advice before relating his story, and there are a number of precedents where attempts to reveal bogus data (whether disinfo documents created to fool the enemy, or spurious documents to test loyalty) have been shown to have no basis for prosecution. Revealing real data, of course, would be a very different matter.

That’s the crux of why John came forward: he is saying, and I think he’s right, that he never was exposed to classified files. It was all a ruse, and more importantly, a ruse containing no real secrets. Just manufactured stuff to see if he could keep his mouth shut, and if he could, then slowly integrate him into further Intel based work.

Yep, re DNA etc: the idea that the Soviets/Mengele etc could genetically alter people (way back in the 40s!) is nonsense.

You say of intel agencies: “…they don’t like to work together so the idea that the CIA (which deals in HumInt), NSA (which deals in SigInt) and the Air Force Intelligence running ops side by side and in collaboration doesn’t seem feasible.”

Correct, they don’t like to work together, history has shown that. But, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. As an example, when the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded just after take-off in January 1986, the FBI launched an investigation into claims that were circulating that the shuttle’s main fuel-tank had been hit by a “laser beam weapon” or a laser-guided weapon.

The FBI oversaw the investigation, but one aspect of it (into the then current level of technology related to such weaponry in overseas, potentially-hostile nations) was undertaken by Army Intelligence, who shared their files on this matter with an arm of the British Ministry of Defense, who assisted to a small degree in the affair, and a copy of the entire FBI file on this affair is on file with AFOSI!

Nick_redfern

Glorfindel:

Why wasn’t John arrested? Simple: he did not reveal any classified data. By his own admission, he felt the “files” he was exposed to were not genuine, but contained spurious data to test his loyalty when he was being groomed for classified work. That no action was taken, suggests his view that they contained no real, secret data, was correct.

Also by his admission, he has not spoken about his post-exposure work. I can also tell you that he took a great deal of legal advice before relating his story, and there are a number of precedents where attempts to reveal bogus data (whether disinfo documents created to fool the enemy, or spurious documents to test loyalty) have been shown to have no basis for prosecution. Revealing real data, of course, would be a very different matter.

That’s the crux of why John came forward: he is saying, and I think he’s right, that he never was exposed to classified files. It was all a ruse, and more importantly, a ruse containing no real secrets. Just manufactured stuff to see if he could keep his mouth shut, and if he could, then slowly integrate him into further Intel based work.

Yep, re DNA etc: the idea that the Soviets/Mengele etc could genetically alter people (way back in the 40s!) is nonsense.

You say of intel agencies: “…they don’t like to work together so the idea that the CIA (which deals in HumInt), NSA (which deals in SigInt) and the Air Force Intelligence running ops side by side and in collaboration doesn’t seem feasible.”

Correct, they don’t like to work together, history has shown that. But, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. As an example, when the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded just after take-off in January 1986, the FBI launched an investigation into claims that were circulating that the shuttle’s main fuel-tank had been hit by a “laser beam weapon” or a laser-guided weapon.

The FBI oversaw the investigation, but one aspect of it (into the then current level of technology related to such weaponry in overseas, potentially-hostile nations) was undertaken by Army Intelligence, who shared their files on this matter with an arm of the British Ministry of Defense, who assisted to a small degree in the affair, and a copy of the entire FBI file on this affair is on file with AFOSI!

Glorfindel

Interesting information, I didn’t know about the Challenger disaster. However I still maintained the idea that all and sundry intelligence/government agencies being involved in some kind of cover-up is far-fetched. Intelligence agencies are territorial and government agencies don’t like to assume responsibility with things go awry – look at 9/11 and acrimony between the FAA and the FBI…

With regards the Challenger disaster, I would the reason that NASA couldn’t investigate is because they are a civilian agency and if it were an act of criminality on the home soil then it would naturally be within the remit of the FBI and AFOSI because it happened in the sky. I can’t speak to the reasons why the MoD was involved maybe because we (the British) are part of the information gathering network along with all the other countries in the Anglosphere.

The stuff about John is interesting and I will read through your book when I get a chance.

Thanks.

Nick_redfern

Glorfindel:

You say: “However I still maintained the idea that all and sundry intelligence/government agencies being involved in some kind of cover-up is far-fetched.”

Well, while I certainly can’t comment on everything, in the case of John I can say there was no cover-up. There was a program, 40 years ago (which was when he was exposed to it), that involved certain Intel players being exposed to bogus documents and data to test their loyalty.

Nothing real was being hidden.

Nick_redfern

And more importantly, nothing real was disclosed by John – aside from the bogus data that he commented on.

Nick_redfern

NASA does have a division that deals with espionage within the agency, criminal issues etc.

As for AFOSI – they have the file because the FBI approached them for comment on the then-current state of laser-related weaponry, and the files were shared with OSI by the FBI agents on the investigation. Same with the MoD.

Bob Mayer

I find it strange that her book was optioned by Gale Anne Hurd– who did The Walking Dead. Perhaps that says enough by itself.
My research for my fiction series on Area 51 back in the early 90s showed very little source information. As a former Special Operations soldier, and having been out to Area 51, I have to say if you know about it, it aint it. It’s what you haven’t heard about that’s the real deal.